Tuesday, May 3, 2016

Security In Iraq, Apr 22-28, 2016

Violence jumped in Iraq the fourth week of April 2016. The
Islamic State picked up its terrorist operations and executions during the week
leading to the increase. There was also the usual fighting in areas where the
government was carrying out security operations. The week’s spike may mean that
in fact, IS is carrying out a spring offensive.

There were 160 incidents during the fourth week of April.
That compared to 124 the third week, 141 the second, and 144 the first. Attacks
often go up and down throughout each month, and April 22-28 was one of those
high points.

Baghdad had the most incidents with 72 followed by 24 in Ninewa,
22 in Anbar, 16 in Diyala, 14 in Salahaddin, 9 in Kirkuk, 2 in Babil, and 1 in
Karbala.

There were 413 deaths and 524 wounded during the week. That
was the highest total casualties, 937, since the last week of February when
there were 1,061 reported in the press.

The dead were made up of 5 Sahwa, 29 Peshmerga, 30 Hashd, 42
members of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF), and 307 civilians. 2 Sahwa, 14
Peshmerga, 42 Hashd, 56 ISF, and 410 civilians were also wounded.

Ninewa had the highest number of deaths with 204. There were
another 113 in Baghdad, 45 in Salahaddin, 33 in Anbar, and 9 in Diyala and
Kirkuk each.

There was still major fighting going on in Anbar. In the
middle of April the town of Hit in western Anbar was freed. Since then the
Iraqi forces have tried to clear out the surrounding
towns and moved into the Hit-Haditha
valley. A new Garma operation was announced the second week of April, but was
going through the same areas like Subhait and Albu Jasim that were fought over
in February and March. The effort to take the Garma district has gone on for
two years now. The government’s forces got to the center of the town, but were
never able to take it from the Islamic State, and as time passed, they got
caught churning through the outside areas again and again. The Hashd led effort
outside Fallujah led to the clearing of Albu
Khanfj and Albu Abdul. Finally, at the start of March a massive sweep
was made from Samarra in central Salahaddin to the Thar Thar Lake in northern
Anbar. The Iraqi forces claimed this as a huge victory, but during the fourth
week of April, they went right back into Thar
Thar. This is a huge rural area, which the government has no possibility of
holding for any length of time. All this fighting in Anbar took a toll on the
leadership of the ISF. The chief of
staff of the 7th Division, the commander
of the 27th Brigade from that division were both killed, and the 7th
Brigade commander was wounded.
On another front an estimated 200 people died and
were injured by IEDs in Ramadi after political and religious leaders encouraged
them to return to the city before removing the bombs had seriously begun. Overall,
the government is expanding its control over the major areas in Anbar. The
problem continues to be holding onto the smaller towns, which continue to
switch hands in many places.

Violence in Baghdad shot back up from April 22-28. During
the third week of April the number of incidents in Baghdad saw a large drop to
just 59. That was due to demonstrations in the capital demanding government
reforms. Every time they occur the Islamic State has reduced its attacks. In
the fourth week, incidents went back up to 72 with very high levels of violence
on days when there were no protests. As usual the south was the hardest hit
with 2 car bombs, 1 sticky bomb, 5 shootings, and 13 IEDs for a total of 26
incidents. After that there were 14 in the north, 13 in the west, 12 in the
east, and 5 in the center. The four car bombings from April 22-28 were the most
in the province since the first week of October 2015 when there were also four.
Those bombings pointed to another escalation in terrorist activity by the
Islamic State in Baghdad, which has been going on for months now as it losses
on the battlefield.

In Diyala there was a new wave of attacks on the capital of
Baquba. That included a suicide
bomber attacking a market, a car bomb being discovered
and dismantled before it could go off, and two mortar attacks.

Ninewa saw clashes and attacks upon the ISF and Peshmerga,
and a new string of large scale executions by the Islamic State. The Makhmour
operation got going again with two towns taken at the end of the week. IS
counterattacked four times in the district. The militants also fired rockets on
Peshmerga positions twice. In Mosul, Qayara and Makhmour IS executed 141 people
and blew up two churches. Finally a coalition air strike was blamed
for killing 36 civilians in Mosul.

Tensions in Tuz Kharmato got out of control again in
ethnosectarian violence between Arab Shiite Hashd units, Shiite Turkmen, Peshmerga,
and Kurdish irregulars. This was a replay of the heavy fighting that occurred
in the town in November. In total, the press had 43 dead and 65 wounded. The
town is explosive because of all the agendas at work. There are several
different Hashd groups in the area, all competing with each other. Attacks and
harassing Kurds is one outgrowth of this rivalry. Local Turkmen and Kurds feel
threatened by each other and the armed forces in Tuz, and regularly carry out
small scale violence against each other, and readily join in when heavy
fighting breaks out. That all adds up to an explosive situation, which will
continue to go off in the foreseeable future as long as armed groups instead of
the government are in charge of the area.

In a further sign that the Islamic State was moved back into
the Baiji district in Salahaddin, the Hashd started a new operation in Siniya
at the very end of the month, and a suicide car bomb was destroyed there as
well. The Hashd led forces moved to the northeast after it freed Baiji and this
has allowed the militants to re-infiltrate.

Finally, there were four successful car bombs in Iraq during
the week, all in Baghdad. They cost the lives of 23 people and wounded another
79. The Iraqi forces claimed to have destroyed another 28 with one each in
Diyala and Salahaddin, 7 in Ninewa, and 19 in Anbar.

IRAQ HISTORY TIMELINE

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About Me

Musings On Iraq was started in 2008 to explain the political, economic, security and cultural situation in Iraq via original articles and interviews. If you wish to contact me personally my email is: motown67@aol.com